Wilfred Norman Edwards

Wilfred Norman Edwards FGS (13 June 1890 – 17 December 1956) was a British paleobotanist and keeper of geology at the Natural History Museum from 1938 to 1955 and was awarded the Lyell Medal in 1955.

Education Edwards was born in Peterborough, and went to school at Cambridge County School. He trained as a botanist, studying at the University of Cambridge School of Botany under Albert Seward, professor of botany, and others. He attended Christ's College, Cambridge as a scholar, and graduated with a BA degree in 1912.

Career After graduation, Edwards worked in Germany with paleobotanist Walther Gothan, before starting work at the Natural History Museum in 1913. During the First World War, he served with the Royal Army Medical Corps in the Balkans, and only returned to museum work in 1919. He was keeper of geology at the museum from 1938 to 1955. Early in his career, Edwards recognised fossil plants in samples that had been collected during early geological expeditions to Antarctica; notably, the identification of leaves of the plant Glossopteris and fossil wood Rhexoxylon in samples collected by Hartley Ferrar from Victoria Land during the British Discovery Expedition of 1901 to 1904.

Edwards' career took him to many parts of Europe and Africa to collect specimens. In his obituary, Edwards' colleague Maurice Wonnacott recounts how one collecting expedition in north Africa involved a 500 kilometre round-trip by camel from Touggourt to Tozeur. In 1929, Edwards travelled overland the length of Africa, from Cape Town to Cairo.

Family Edwards married Winifred How in 1921, and they later lived in Hitchin, Hertfordshire.